I can't sleep…
So far, so good.
The brilliant days and nights
are breathless in their hurry.
We follow, you and I.
– Lisel Mueller, Curriculum Vitae 1992
Credits:
I weighed two hundred kilos,
something was pulling me to the floor,
a huge force had taken hold of me
and was dragging me down.
What shall I do, I thought.
What shall I do.
I’ll let go, I thought.
I’ll let go.
~ Per Petterson, I Refuse: A Novel
Notes:
If my life weren’t complicated, I wouldn’t be me.
This is triggered by the tail end of the book title by E. Lockhart:
If my life weren’t complicated, I wouldn’t be Ruby Oliver.
Ruby goes on to say:
I can’t forget things, or ignore them–bad things that happen. I’m a lay-it-all-out person, a dwell-on-it person, an obsess-about-it person. If I hold things in and try to forget or pretend, I become a madman and have panic attacks. I have to talk.
Travis Bickle (De Niro/Taxi Driver/1976) pops in: “You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talking… you talking to me? Well I’m the only one here.”
I can’t forget things, or ignore them? Most certainly Yes.
Not so many bad things happen, and I’m (very) grateful for that.
I’m certainly a lay-it-all-out person (often to much regret),
and boy, can I obsess. Master class here.
As to a madman,
that depends from which side of the desk you are sitting on in evaluation.
And, as to having to talk, not so much.
It’s Tuesday morning.
It’s overcast. It’s drizzling and traffic is snarled.
I’m running late to a 9 am start at a volunteer event at a Food Bank.
There’s a logistics snag.
The Food Bank manager wasn’t expecting us for 3 hours.
There’s frustration etched in her face, but she puts on her game face and scrambles to coordinate activities for two corporate groups, in a space designed for one.
She proceeds with her introduction: Continue reading “Hunger.”
As a member of the self-employed whose time saved by technology can be lavished on daydreams and meanders, I know these things have their uses, and use them — a truck, a computer, a modem — myself, but I fear their false urgency, their call to speed, their insistence that travel is less important than arrival. I like walking because it is slow, and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought, or thoughtfulness.
― Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking
Don’t miss Brain Pickings entire post: Wanderlust: Rebecca Solnit on Walking and the Vitalizing Meanderings of the Mind
Image: Sweet Senderipity
“I felt like there had been some mistake,” she said. “…that I wasn’t smart enough to be in this company.”…When Portman was finally able to combat these feelings of self-doubt, there’d be more roadblocks to overcome…
By the time Portman got to “Black Swan,” she said that “the experience was completely [her own].” Portman had vowed to only sign onto projects that she could glean meaningful things from. And Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” — a project she admits she was “woefully unprepared for” and was “15 years away from being a ballerina” when she signed on for — would carry, perhaps, one of Portman’s most meaningful life experiences.
“It was instructive for me to see that for ballet dancers — once your technique gets to a certain level — the only thing that separates you from others is your quirks,” Portman said. “Or even, flaws … You can never be the best technically. Someone will always have a higher jump or a more beautiful line. The only thing you can be the best at is developing your own self.”
~ Natalie Portman, 2015 Harvard Commencement Speech
Credits: Quote – Salon.com.